The Bully Pulpit

The aim of The Bully Pulpit is to use the photographic medium and performance as a responsive attack to cyberbullying. The use of a visual publication of this performative response to bullying, preserves that response, unlike the discourse indicative of cyberbullying which may be altered or deleted from the internet. The performed responses which are unidentifiable and anonymous persona representations were constructed from the public profiles of people who made insulting comments about the photographer, via online messages and posts. These performative self-portraits include the bully’s comments as text-based extracts within the composition. They depict a range of cyberbullies from a variety of demographics including mothers, policemen, soldiers and children. Online comments and communications were analysed. From the 7550 social media comments received, 60.4% were defined as cyberbullying in nature. The qualifications for a message to be considered cyberbullying included those that criticised the subject’s body size, physical appearance, physical or mental health condition or threats of violence to the subject. A deeper analysis into individual public profiles led to a selection methodology that preferred a diverse spread of social, cultural, ethnic, gender and age candidates, to highlight the extent of cyberbullying discrimination within society. 25 indicative portraits were developed for the publication dealing with this range of responses and attitudes. The Bully Pulpit contextually illuminated the social issue of cyberbullying, presenting the likeness of the bully with the bullying comment that they made.